


Irish Coffee

by Flames and Fairy Tales (Flames_and_Fairy_Tales)



Series: Caffeine Addicts [5]
Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alcohol Misuse, Gen, Light Angst, Quill just quit Fittes, Start of a friendship, and is drinking away his sorrows in a pub, set in TCS, until Lockwood comes bother him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27827257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flames_and_Fairy_Tales/pseuds/Flames%20and%20Fairy%20Tales
Summary: Quill drowns his sorrows after quitting his job at the Fittes agency. Of course, he is interrupted by Lockwood, who has a few revelations to share with him, as well as an offer.
Relationships: Quill Kipps & Anthony Lockwood
Series: Caffeine Addicts [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1248053
Comments: 21
Kudos: 27





	Irish Coffee

Quill Kipps had never considered himself much of a drinker. As a teen, he and his friends had been too busy working through the nights to discover the wonders of alcohol together, and as he grew older, the amount of people his age to drink with dwindled steadily. He never saw a reason to get wasted on his own. Alcohol burned down your throat and dulled your senses, which was about the last thing he wanted when going out on a job. He knew of older supervisors who smuggled canteens of whiskey with them, with the excuse that a drop of liquid courage got them through the long, dangerous nights. For Quill, the thought of getting drunk at a haunted location only served to add to the nerves that came with a job, instead of easing them. He was too afraid that he would miss something or react too slowly, and that could get people killed.

Well, he didn’t have to worry about that anymore. The bartender set the glass mug in front of him, and Quill reached for it without hesitation. 

“You gotta watch your drinking mate,” the bartender remarked, wiping down the counter where he had spilled some whiskey while making Quill his drink. Towel in hand, he stared at him, taking in Quill’s slumped posture.

Quill raised an eyebrow. “This is only my second,” he replied, hating how defensive his tone sounded. 

“Just saying. Coffee dulls how drunk you really are.” 

When Quill didn’t reply, the bartender shrugged and left him to his own devices, taking orders from the group of men that just entered his pub to watch the football game together. It was a couple hours before curfew, and most people would consider it too early to start drinking. Quill didn’t care. He couldn’t bring himself to care much about anything lately. 

Everything had seemed so logical when he was young. Because he could see ghosts clearly, he had to use that talent to protect the people who couldn’t. He worked long nights without complaint, practiced fencing to keep in shape, and studied hard to get all his qualifications. He worked by the book and protected his teammates, and they did the same for him. he did his part to make London that bit safer amid the never-ending Problem. In short, Quill did everything he could to be a good operative. 

And then his talent disappeared.

Suddenly he wasn’t the first to perceive the ghosts at a haunted location. Younger agents would pull him out of the way from a forming manifestation before he even realised it was there. A while later he couldn’t make out the same details the younger agents could. Over two months, he lost nearly all his psychic senses. It had been difficult, but Sweeney made him a supervisor of two small teams, and he put all his energy into keeping the kids underneath his care safe. It was no easy task, but he discovered he was a decent leader, and the kids under his supervision respected him. Despite loosing his talent, he didn’t feel like he was useless. He started to rise through the ranks. 

Over time, the cracks showed in the perfect picture Quill had created for himself. There were cases where he didn’t have all the information. Because they did well, the Fittes superiors scheduled his team in too often until they were all tired and overworked, and after three months as a supervisor he lost a kid for the first time.   
They had gone to the old warehouse in Silvertown. It seemed to be a simple case, and Quill hadn’t yet learned the lesson that those were often the most dangerous ones. According to his researcher, a young factory worker died in an industrial accident involving a circular saw, so they’d prepared for a grizzly case. The dismembered victim was one of the ghosts, but one of his youngest agents, Myla Wright, learned the hard way he wasn’t the only one. She was Ghost Touched by the man who pushed the victim into the machine. He had taken his own life out of guilt over the accident. 

Despite trying everything he could, Quill was unable to save the girl from Ghost-Touch to the chest, and she passed away before the Night-ambulance even reached the warehouse.

And yet he continued on, swearing to do better. He tried not to send the kids into haunted locations on their own, tried to keep a steady head, took extra training so he could help his team with their mental health. He tried, tried, tried.  
It had all come to a head at the Guppy house, where Lockwood and co plus Lucy experienced a simmering terror throughout the night, while he sat in his chain circle and could only make himself useful when Lockwood set his suicidal plan to draw out the Visitor in action. Despite all his ambitions of making England a safer place, he’d become nothing more than a cog in the machine that churned out child soldiers by the thousands, only to let them die.

Quill took a large gulp of his drink, letting the burning in his throat distract him from the pricking behind his eyes. What use was it crying over them? It wouldn’t bring them back.

Despite children fighting against the dead for over five decades, the supernatural threat only seemed to grow. It was hard not to give in to the feeling of hopelessness.

A cheer rose up in the pub, and Quill looked up from staring at his drink miserably to see the group of men cheering and pointing at the tv, which showed a fuzzy repetition of a football goal. He watched as they clapped each other on the back, congratulating themselves as if they personally had scored the goal. 

In an hour or two, they would make their way back home. They’d close the front door behind them and put up the iron wards. Maybe they’d light lavender candles or pour water into a runnel. Maybe they had a partner who started the preparations for them. After that, they’d forget about the threat of the night. They’d eat dinner, spent some time with their family, and crawl into a warm and cozy bed, to sleep through the hours in which ghosts ruled without a second thought. 

Quill finished his drink and slammed the mug down. The sudden sound made some people turn their heads, but he ignored them. 

“I’d like another one,” He told the barman. 

“Listen man, I don’t think you should be so casual with mix drinks-”

Quill narrowed his eyes. “Fine, no more mix drinks. Whiskey on the rocks.”

The barman pursed his lips in disapproval, but Quill didn’t pay it any mind. He was done letting other people make judgements and decisions for him. 

He could pretend quitting his job was a spur-of-the-moment decision, caused by seeing the way Lockwood and co worked at the Guppy house, and the unexpectedly deep wave of uselessness it brought on. It would be a lie. From the moment Ned Shaw had died, Quill had struggled with himself and his position in the Fittes agency. Joining Lockwood and co in the Aickmere department store had been his first minor rebellion, and while they couldn’t publicly punish him for it, the higher ups had known. They had punished him by promoting him in name only and sticking him with as many menial tasks as they could come up with. 

Without the cream and sugar of the Irish coffee, the large sip of whiskey Quill took tasted a lot more bitter. He couldn’t help but wince at the stronger taste, being reminded why he preferred mix drinks. Still, the worry and emotion of the past two days had lost their sharp edges. His anxious thoughts seemed to be distant in his clouded mind, and while his vision swam a little when he looked over at the men booing at the tv, he greatly preferred it over the churning sense of hopelessness he never seemed to be able to shake.

Distracted by the match and the fuzzy feeling in his head, Quill didn’t realise someone new had entered the pub until they plopped down on the barstool next to him.

“I thought it was you,” Anthony Lockwood said, adjusting his rapier so it hung down from his hip, parallel to the barstool. 

It took Quill a second to be able to focus on the young man’s face. “What d’you want?” he managed, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy in his mouth. 

“I heard you quit Fittes.” It was a statement, not a question, and irritation bubbled up in Quill’s gut. 

“Where?” 

“Miss Fittes mentioned it when we saw her this morning.” A shadow of something flashed across Lockwood’s face as he mentioned Quill’s former boss, but it had passed before Quill could identify it in his current state. 

“So? what’s it t’you?” He asked instead.

Lockwood didn’t answer immediately, instead frowning at the way Quill slurred his words. 

“You’re drunk,” he concluded. 

Quill shrugged at him. It was an accurate assumption, but Quill didn’t see why it mattered. He was on his own, and Lockwood didn’t hold any responsibility for his wellbeing. 

After staring at Quill for another moment, Lockwood turned towards the barman, raising a hand to get his attention. Despite being young, Lockwood held an imposing confidence that was hard to ignore, so the barman came over immediately. 

“What can I get you?” 

“Two coffees and a mineral water, please.” Lockwood replied, pulling out his wallet. “And if Kipps has a tab open, I’ll close it.” 

“I can pay for my own booze, Tony,” Quill protested, his annoyance cutting through the fog in his mind. Anthony Lockwood was not liberal with his money, so he immediately recognised there was more behind the gesture than simple generosity. 

“I’m sure you can.” 

“You can’t buy my time, I should just go.” 

“Feel free.” 

Something in Lockwood had eased since the last time Quill had seen him. There was still a lot of pent up energy bubbling under the surface, but he was more collected, more at ease with that energy now. It was a sharp contrast from the Guppy case, and Quill found himself unable to just leave when Lockwood so obviously wanted to speak with him. 

Recognising he had won the challenge, Lockwood turned back to the barkeeper and handed him the proper amount of money. They waited as the man prepared the coffees and grabbed a bottle of water. Then Lockwood lead Quill to a small booth in the back of the pub, out of earshot from the bar and away from the football fans, who were still yelling at the tv.

“Sit,” Lockwood said, putting down the coffees and handing Quill the bottle of mineral water. “And drink that, you need to sober up.” 

“I’m not your dog, Tony,” Quill muttered, but he took the bottle and sat down anyway, shuffling to the corner of the booth. He took a large sip of the water, letting it wash away the bitter aftertaste of the whiskey he’d been drinking. 

“You’re not,” Lockwood agreed, taking a seat across from him. “But you are Lucy’s closest friend besides George and me.” 

Quill pushed down the surprise he felt at the calm way Lockwood spoke. The last time they had seen each other - when Quill had searched London high and low to find Lucy and found her at Portland Row - there had been an undercurrent of what Quill suspected to be jealousy between them. 

“I wonder. She’s pretty attached to that skull of hers.” Quill muttered. 

Lockwood let out a snort, but didn’t deny it. The two of them sat in silence for a while, in which Quill waited for the water and coffee to do their part to sober him up, and Lockwood gathered courage to speak again. “That’s part of the reason I wanted to talk to you, actually.” 

“Lucy’s attachment to that murky thing?” 

“Yeah. We might have a lead on where it is.” 

Quill sat up straighter, his mind clearing a little more at Lockwood’s words. 

“You do?” 

“It’s more of a hunch,” Lockwood admitted after a moment, “Mailer was part of an operation to sell sources on the black market, and we traced that lead back to the Rotwell Institute.” 

Quill raised an eyebrow. “And you found this out, how exactly?” 

Lockwood pursed his lips for a moment, considering how he’d answer. 

“We raided a night market.” 

“You WHAT?!” 

Quill’s voice boomed through the pub like a gunshot, even catching the attention of the rowdy football fans. If he were more sober, he would have felt self conscious about drawing all those eyes to them, but his mind didn’t get past the fact that Anthony had taken a still recovering Lucy on a dangerous undercover mission. He didn’t give Lockwood the chance to reply. 

“How- no, I assume you got in through Florence?” 

Lockwood nodded. “Lucy had spoken to Flo about her suspicions even before Mailer ratted her out about the skull, so it only took some talking and a lot of liquorice to get Flo in.” 

“I can’t- Lucy was still hurt! Why would you do that?” 

“Because the thugs who stole the skull from Lucy would most likely present it to the Winkman family at that night market. And they did.” 

“Still, Lucy stumbled onto your doorstep exhausted and bleeding, and you take her on an undercover mission not 48 hours later?” 

“She wanted to go on her own at first and come on. If you have really got that close to her over the past few months, you should know that a determined Lucy is very hard to stop. It was easier to go with her so I could help her out.”

Quill found he couldn’t really argue there, Lucy was a force to be reckoned with when she got something into her head. Four months ago, Lockwood might have been able to sway her, but Lucy had become a little disillusioned with him after he’d hired Holly Munro behind her back. Quill had never told her, but he secretly thought their time apart had been good for both of them. 

“But you didn’t get the skull back from the Night market?” Quill asked, reaching for the water bottle again. Most of the mental fuzz had faded away, and he hoped he could stave off the headache that would no doubt come knocking soon. 

“No. We had to runaway and leave it behind, but Lucy recognised someone.” He paused to add drama to his next sentence. “One Mr Johnson, a high ranked employee of the Rotwell institute.” 

Lockwood sat back in the booth, watching Quill. 

“Fucking hell,” Quill muttered. “Is she sure? That would mean Rotwell is illegally experimenting with sources.” 

“She is, and it’s not that much of a surprise, is it?” 

Quill raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Remember what I told you after our interview with the paper after the total mess in Aickmere’s?” 

“About Rotwell showing up in the tunnels to chase away Flo and Cubbins?” 

“Exactly. I think they were there so quick because they’d been working in there, not because DEPRAC sent them.” 

“Maybe both, I wasn’t kidding when I said that the ‘advisors’ from Rotwell and Fittes hold power in DEPRAC.” 

Lockwood finished his coffee while Quill digested the new information he’d given him. Could it really be possible that Rotwell was experimenting with sources? The company was known for its experimentation and Steve Rotwell’s incessant drive to best the Fittes agency, but this seemed to go far, even for them. If there was one thing he knew, it was that messing with sources was dangerous business. He had not forgotten the chaos the Bone Glass had caused last summer. 

“Okay, so Rotwell might be even more of a hornets’ nest than we knew. How does this give you a lead on where Lucy’s pet ghost is?” 

A smile appeared on Lockwood’s face. It was not a bright and disarming smile, like he used on to calm down antsy clients and DEPRAC officers. No, there was something predatory about it, like a cat about to finish his game with a mouse, and Quill got the idea that Lockwood was finally getting to the point of their little meeting.

“Lockwood and co has been approached by a kid named Danny Skinner. He came to London from Aldbury Castle, claiming the village is cursed. The people there have been dealing with a wave of increased ghostly activity over the past few months. Loads of new ghosts pop up every night, and 16 deaths in the last three months.” Quill winced at that. Those numbers were unprecedented for a small village. Lockwood nodded in agreement at his reaction.

“It almost sounds like a smaller scale Chelsea outbreak.” 

“Doesn’t it? And according to Skinner, it started three months ago, right after the Chelsea outbreak died down.” 

Quill frowned, trying to link all the information together. His mind still wasn’t fully clear, and it took a little longer to make the connection. 

“You think that Chelsea and the village outbreak are connected? And that somehow the skull got caught up in it?” 

Lockwood’s grin widened. “Exactly. You see, Holly made a list of the Rotwell institute facilities. One was set up right outside Danny Skinner’s little village a few months ago.” He leant forward a bit. “And then the ghosts started appearing.” 

“Okay, but now what? You can’t just march into the facility there, for all you know whatever it is they’re doing is above board.” 

“Since they’re getting their sources from the black market, I doubt it, but It might be.” Lockwood conceded. “That’s why we’re taking Danny Skinner’s case. It will give us the opportunity to look around. I’m not sure what we’ll do about the institute yet, but the case gives us an excuse to be in the village. And it’s probably a good idea for me and Lucy to leave town for a bit.” 

Quill shook his head, wincing a little when the room swam a bit with the motion. “Thanks for letting me know Lucy will be out of town for a while. You’re right that it is for the best. Can I get back to drinking now?” 

“No, you can’t,” Lockwood replied. “First of all, Curfew is in 45 minutes, I will not leave you to drunkenly stumble into a shade tonight.”   
Quill scrunched his nose, but he had no counterargument. “And secondly, I want you to come along to Aldbury Castle tomorrow.” 

“What?” 

“I want you to come along. You’ve got good strategic insights, you know how we work, and you and Lucy are friends. I think you could be an excellent addition to our team.” 

Quill didn’t know how to reply, so he just gaped at Lockwood silently. After a few awkward seconds, Lockwood’s face fell in a rare display of insecurity. 

“If you don’t want to I can’t make you, but you need a job, right? Join us at least this one case so you have some more time to get back on your feet.”

“… Okay,” Quill managed after another moment. He could see Lockwood was trying to be helpful, giving him some extra time to figure out what he wanted with his life now that he wasn’t a supervisor anymore, as well as an opportunity to keep in touch with Lucy. Perhaps it was even a peace offering. “Okay, I’ll join you on this one case. I’m not joining your company permanently though.” 

The smile was back immediately. Lockwood got up and pulled his coat around him, adjusting the rapier hanging from his waist. 

“Perfect,” he said. “Meet us at Waterloo station tomorrow at ten.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! It's been a long time since I wrote anything for this series, and it felt good to come back to it. I know I'm straying a bit from the initial premise of exploring the relationship between Quill and Lucy but I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Please let me know what you thought in a comment!


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